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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26239639">Scrapbook</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spayne/pseuds/Spayne'>Spayne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Killing Eve (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:08:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,511</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26239639</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spayne/pseuds/Spayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not a scrapbook. Obviously.</p><p>But even if it were, it would still be a perfectly acceptable grown up reaction to a rather rude stabbing incident.</p><p>Canon divergent from 2x01</p><p>Day four of killing eve week</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>152</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Killing Eve Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Scrapbook</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This started as silly frippery and then became something else in the middle. </p><p>But I stand by my promise that this is a week of presents for Villanelle, Oksana, either, both.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You are not walking any faster than usual. There is no spring in your step. This is normal walking pace. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">What? You just have long legs. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You didn’t opt for flats on the way back from the station for any reason beyond….comfort. Yes. Perfect. Your wardrobe is predominantly chosen for…comfort...? </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ok. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">That is a stretch. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But there certainly is nothing to see here. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">This is normal walking pace. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You are to be commended for your self restraint. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">People are often too focused on what you have done, rather than what you could have done worse but chose not to. It is very annoying.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You haven’t been home in two weeks and after allowing yourself the briefest indulgence to think that something, someone, might be waiting for you, you admit to yourself that you may have sped up slightly.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The first one came about six months ago. Two weeks after Konstantin found you in that hospital, with his new offer from The Twelve. He gave you promise after promise. More autonomy, more money, fewer stints in Russian prisons. You yawned theatrically. It probably lacked the punch you aimed for coming, as it did, from where you lay on the hospital bed.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then he promised to get you into a better hospital. You were sold. To think you’ve been accused of being a short-termist. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So you were moved into a hospital with real gelato rather than ice cream. You dosed up on antibiotics and pain killers, then spent the next two weeks thinking about her.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her hair. Her neck. Her hands. Everything that she said. That fucking knife. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You thought about how you’d travel to London. You thought about what you’d wear. You thought about where you’d do it. You thought about how. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You wished you still had the knife.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You thought about kissing her. You thought about killing her. You thought about fucking her. You thought about it all. Then you ate gelato and thought about her some more.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">By the time you got back to your apartment Konstantin had arranged for someone to clean up her mess. You felt a flash of annoyance. The sheets that she lay on, the same ones covered in your blood, held a certain appeal and you hadn’t indulged yourself since the knife. But they were gone when you arrived. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A shame really.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But there was something waiting for you. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Post. Real not junk mail or bills post.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">You love post. Grown ups get post. It’s nice to feel like a grown up sometimes. </span>Does anyone else know that about you? Probably not, who is there that would ask?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The envelope was hand written. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Your hand shook. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Your mind raced. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Was it anger or hope? You still aren’t sure.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You imagined a letter. Begging for her life? You couldn’t imagine that. An apology? You couldn’t imagine that either.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was an article cut from a magazine about how eating yogurt could help with serious stomach injuries.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You turned it over and checked for a note. There wasn’t one. No note. No explanation. Just an article on yogurt.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You smiled. Sort of.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You read the article. It was really very dull. Very heavy on the faux science. You read it again. Then you went out and bought a large pot of yogurt and ate it in one go.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You read it again.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You laughed.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was an apology you realised.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You thought about her hands meticulously cutting the article from the magazine. It’s something you imagine a grandmother doing. Not yours, obviously. But a nice one. A wholesome one on a tv show. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You spent two days thinking about a suitable response. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You went to Gare Du Nord and bought every english magazine. Nothing fit. You ordered four boxes of old magazines from eBay and that’s where you found it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <strong> <span class="s1">Ten ways to apologise to your lover!</span> </strong>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Perfect.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You couldn’t resist including a note.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em> <span class="s1">Try harder.</span> </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You smiled. You forced yourself not to add a kiss. You refused to spray the perfume. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She’s not earned that.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You wrote the address and the more cautious side of you paused at the post box. Would sending a response compromise your position? Would this be her victory?</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Fuck that, you wanted to encourage her to chase.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So you posted it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Sure enough a few days later there was another one. Printed from the internet this time.An article about overcoming arrogance. You laughed.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You sent one back about impulse control  issues.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It became your new focus. Yeah, yeah, you worked too. But this was your focus. Every day you ran downstairs to check the post even when you knew that she wouldn’t have had time to respond yet. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You bought an attractive book to keep them all in. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It isn’t a scrapbook. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It isn’t! </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It is…a convenient way to keep all the cuttings in order. So that’s fine. It’s a perfectly adult response to excess paper. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s....admin, nothing more. It’s just admin in a cute notebook. With thick very nice feeling pages. It’s a perfectly reasonable grown up thing to do.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The day it became more than casual teasing was the day she sent you a recipe for shepherds pie. It felt like an invitation. You could’ve chosen whether to respond with something light. Or you could engage in the way you thought that she wanted you to.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You’re new to all this. It can be hard to read people when they are there in front of you so this was much more difficult. You knew that whatever you chose would be revealing and the thought of letting her in again was scary.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In the end you decided to be brave. You took some time thinking about what she might like, about where you might take her on a date. You thought about restaurants. You thought about moonlit walks and riverside strolls. You discarded them all.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She is ghoulish. Macabre. Weird. It’s why you like her so much.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You stayed up till past 3am on google, trying to find the right thing.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There is a museum near Holborn. It’s got all sorts of neat stuff in jars. Heads. Hands. Fingers. Eyes. It’s gross and cool and you wished you could go with her. You could slip your hand around hers whilst you both looked at dismembered arms. That would be fun.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But that wasn’t the game.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You bought a ticket and put it in the post.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was a date.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The next day you had to kill a government minister in Portugal. You were almost shot for your trouble, your mind so preoccupied over whether she had liked it. You told Konstantin you needed to take a break. He grumbled and said it wasn’t the right time. So much for more autonomy.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The response came two days later. A ticket to Musée des Arts Décoratifs.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You lay back on your bed and bit your lip to hold in the squeal.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She liked it and had asked you on another date.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The next day you went to the museum, you went on her date. In the morning you paid closer attention to your hair and make up. You chose a dress you knew would draw her gaze to your tits, enough skin to tease but not enough to reveal. You imagined you could feel her eyes on you. You walked beneath the vaulted ceilings and thought of her the whole time.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When don’t you?</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Things went differently from then on. In amongst the teasing she sent suggestions of things that you might like, you sent her cut outs from magazines with clothes that you thought she might both like and wear. You wanted to show her that you could be thoughtful.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You’ve always liked letters. Perhaps why that is why you liked this.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then it changed again. She sent a copy of the yogurt article again. This time with a post it. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em> <span class="s1">I am sorry x</span> </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You didn’t know how you were supposed to respond. You had stopped thinking about the knife in terms of anger a long time ago. You had started to think about it in terms of love.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You looked through magazines for the correct response. You found it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <strong> <span class="s1">Why this is THE summer to embrace the one piece!!</span> </strong>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You added a note. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em> <span class="s1">You are forgiven.</span> </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The teasing resumed. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then came the last thing she sent you.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was property details from an estate agent with a handwritten address and a date in the corner five weeks away. A two bedroom flat in London. It was nice. The price was a little under half of what you thought her house might be worth. Your mind raced.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">No more husband. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You didn’t know how to feel about that. It suddenly became more real. Like the magazines and the tickets for dates and recipes were safe in a way that this suddenly wasn’t any longer. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You tried to remember how it felt when she slipped in the knife. You thought about her face. Her brutal expression before the regret. You tried to remind yourself of your anger and pain. You tried to conjure hatred. It didn’t come.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You’ve never been good at controlling your emotions.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You didn’t respond. You struggled to sleep. You looked back through the not-scrapbook at everything she’d sent you. Over and over, trying to find a way to read this as a trick. As a means to control you. As something other than her simply reaching out. Trying to build…something. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You kept reminding yourself that no one has tried before. No one worth remembering anyway. Why should she be different? </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You took a job. Then another. There was no joy in either. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Gun. Blood. Body. Death. Next.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You tried to be cynical but the more you sought out cruelty in her carefully selected messages, the more all you could see was affection.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So you shouldn’t have been surprised when at 3am four nights ago in a hotel in Madrid you listened to the treacherous voice inside you and decided to take the risk. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You bought a voucher for the Eurostar. You bullied the night porter into printing it and giving you an envelope and stamp. You wrote her address, the old one, and walked for 35 minutes around Madrid looking for a post box. You posted it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There has been a feeling sat in your gut ever since. You can’t quite decide what it is. It’s a bit like fear, but it isn’t. It’s a bit like hope, but it isn’t that either. Whatever it is feels shit.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So yeah. That was four days ago and now, if you are rushing, and you do not wholly accept that you are, that is why.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You’ve been through every iteration of what you are walking back into. She could be there standing in your trashed apartment just like before. Or maybe she’d there with that woman from the prison, another auditionee for the role of your puppet master. Maybe she’ll be there on your bed waiting for you.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Or she might not be there at all. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Being reasonable, she probably got the letter yesterday…maybe. So she’d have had to have booked a seat almost immediately after receiving it in order to get here today. So probably she won’t be there. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Of course, that is all working under the assumption that this is more than a game. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">That it is more than another way to chase each other. Perhaps she just liked that this version of your old game was slightly safer than the last. Or that’s what you had originally thought at least. So there is the real possibility that by showing your hand like this, by explicitly asking her to come, you’ll have pushed too hard and broken whatever this is.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s a thing you do, pushing for more. You can’t help it. Anna wanted to be a saviour, you wanted love. Konstantin wants an assassin, you want a friend. Eve wants excitement, you want....something else. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
You know all this but there is a desperate part of you wish continually presses for more. It's Oksana. The weak part of you that still whispers in your ear that you can have what you want.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Thinking about it like that makes you suddenly feel stupid, and you force your feet slow beneath you.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You sink down onto the next bench you pass and set a fifteen minute timer on your phone. Any embarrassing amount of time you made up by walking quickly will be cancelled out now as if it never happened. Good.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">That feeling which has been slowly creeping over your consciousness for the last few days is back. You look down at your feet, at your stupid comfortable flat shoes.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">What are you doing? This isn’t you. This isn’t Villanelle at least.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">All this for a woman who pulled you in with promises of acceptance and desire and something else. Something you thought could be love one day. Then when you dropped your guard you were rewarded with a knife.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And your response? To make a fucking scrapbook.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Fuck.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You forget sometimes how much you hate Oksana.</span>
</p><p class="p2"><br/>
You hadn’t thought about in quite such stark terms before. But it makes sense, two sides to yourself. Villanelle and Oksana. This whole pathetic scrapbook thing, all the dates and hope and stupidity, it was all Oksana.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There’s a lot to like about Villanelle. She’s brutal, fun, exciting and most importantly she is safe. Oksana is far more dangerous. Oksana is the voice telling you to reach across and tuck her hair behind her ear, the voice encouraging you to lean into her, telling you to expect a kiss. Oksana bought the scrap book, she researched which glue wouldn’t smear the print.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You hate her, yourself, whatever.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Nine minutes left on the timer. You hate your stupid flat shoes. There’s a shop window in front of you. The shoes are all ugly but there is one with an impossibly tall and spindly heel. You go in and buy them, you leave your flats on the shop floor. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The timer went off whilst you were paying. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Time to go.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The heels make your ankles hurt, the cheap leather of the straps cut into your feet. The cobbles force you to walk at a less humiliating pace. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You fucking love these shoes. How often do you get what you want? Well these ugly shoes understand what you need and are giving it to you. You’ll keep them, you decide. Not to wear, obviously, they are hideous. But you’ll keep them.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You reach the front door of the apartment to find that someone has left it open despite all the angry notes from a group of neighbours which are routinely posted under everyone’s front doors whenever someone leaves it open. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It wasn’t you this time. Interesting. Maybe there is someone else here with a penchant for being a dick about stuff like that. Maybe you could meet one day, you could catch them leaving the door open and share a conspiratorial wink. It could be the start of something. You would forget all about Eve in the midst of this new whirlwind romance. The mystery door opener wouldn’t draw you to bed and surprise you with a knife. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But terrible truth of it is that isn’t really what you want.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">How unfair that now you can’t imagine being able to ever feel anything of significance for someone who wouldn’t have been able to do what she did.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So often you waver on how you feel about her indelible mark on your skin. But it’s your feelings on what marks she’s left beneath it are far more ambiguous.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Fuck your feet hurt. Ok, you’ve made your point. Maybe you won’t keep the shoes. You take them off and leave them in the middle of hallway, a nod to the door anarchist of your dreams. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You pick up your case and trudge up the stairs in bare feet.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Maybe she’ll be sitting on the landing waiting for you. Maybe she is the door opener.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She isn’t.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Fucking Oksana again. Villanelle is never the cause of any real pain for you, it’s always Oksana.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You open the door and drag your case behind you.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She hasn’t broken in and trashed your apartment. You are immeasurably disappointed.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You close the door and go to sit on the sofa. The not-scrap book is on the coffee table. Opening it you trace your fingers over all the pages, the same pages that her hands have touched too.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The hands that pushed the knife in are the same that cut and posted all these messages, all these attempt to connect. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">What a weird thought.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You close the book and sink back onto the sofa. You should just throw it out, return to your thoughts on exacting revenge. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You sigh, the sound echoes in the empty apartment. No one is coming. You might as well go and shower off the journey back from Spain.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The bathroom is as it was when you left it. It makes you sad. You let the water run until it’s warm and then you step into it. It feels nice.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You don’t want revenge. You want a knock at the door. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">No more thinking. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Oksana thinks. Villanelle acts.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You decide to fuck yourself. That would kill some time. That would stop you thinking, or hoping or whatever it is you’re doing.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s an easy fantasy. One that comes easier and easier since all this started. It’s a fantasy of getting what you want for once.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You want to open the front door and see her standing there, you want her to look sure and steady. You want her to walk inside, forcing you to step to the side. Your back would hit the wall. She’d step close. You would see in her eyes what she wanted, it would be clear for fucking once and you’d let her have it. You’d give her everything she wants.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You think you might be crying.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Fuck. It’s Oksana again. Prodding you toward feelings that you don’t want to acknowledge.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Drawing your fingers away from between your legs you roughly turn the water cold.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You can’t carry on like this. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">If she isn’t going to come to you after this then you need to put all this away. You need to put as much of Oksana away as you can. You’ve done it before, you’ll just do it again.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You need to let all this be just another mistake, another disappointment. Whatever. It’s not the first and won’t be the last.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You wash your hair in the cold water and your chest aches. You decide that it’s the cold from the water, nothing more.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When you’re done you wrap yourself in a towel. You go to your wardrobe andyou want to wear something soft, something indulgent, something comfortable. You force yourself to pick something which is none of those things, you look for something you might wear had you not just had to stop masturbating because you were crying. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">How is that now a theme of outfit that you own?</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The one concession you make for yourself is to leave your hair in a towel. The concept of drying it is too much, too big an ordeal after this shitty morning.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You sit in front of your mirror to do your make up and look at yourself. You don’t look any different. Villanelle or Oksana. Oksana and Villanelle.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s Oksana who hopes and Villanelle who is left disappointed. Or maybe there’s no difference because it’s always just you sat somewhere alone putting on mascara with unsteady hands.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When the buzzer does go you don’t react. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Not outwardly anyway. It’s a weird thing to </span> <span class="s1">watch your own features school themselves into neutrality when you can feel the conflict beneath.</span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Oksana urging you to rush to the door, telling you that it’s her. Villanelle telling you to focus on your eyelashes.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In the end it’s the same as it always is. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You follow hope. You follow that old hunger to feel a connection. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You walk toward the door. Slower than you thought you’d be able to force yourself to be.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The door buzzes again. You hand stills on the door lock. The old fears holding you back at the last moment. Villanelle remembers Anna’s face as she phoned the police. Villanelle remembers the knife.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But Eve started this, Eve reached out first. Its Eve that wants to connect, every bit as much as you do.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
Now it’s Oksana’s voice telling you the same thing as always; you can have what you want all you need to do is take a risk and reach out. Villanelle is the safer version of yourself, that’s always been true, but beneath it all it’s the hope and risk of Oksana that you crave.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">You made a scrapbook.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">Are you really going to stop chasing all that miserable hope now? Villanelle. Oksana. Whatever. It's all the same really.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s1">You take a steadying breath as you twist the catch and pull.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I may be guilty of compiling a similarly themed scrapbook in the depths of my past. I’ll admit to pizza express receipts and cinema tickets attached with cute coloured tape and glued-in leaves pulled out of freshly mussed hair which I’d secretly squirrelled away in my pocket until I got home.</p><p>I acknowledge the ridiculous drama of this now. I was deadly serious at the time - I even had a glue gun.</p><p>Mortifying details of the teenage version of myself aside; the museum dates are real places. </p><p>V sends E to the Hunterian Museum in London which is a museum full of anatomical specimens. So yeah, that’s a thing I did instead of the hour allocated for “networking” (gags repeatedly) at a conference once.</p><p>And E sends V to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs which is near the Louvre, sort of round the back? Anyway, there’s fashion and furniture and other Frenchie things. It’s worth a punt if you’re in the neighbourhood.</p><p>Finally, I’m going to tease an Eve rejoinder if there is any interest.</p><p>@spayne_fic</p></blockquote></div></div>
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